Archives for November 2016

Right-wing climate denialists are fostering separatism from America’s more progressive coastal states. This could cause the United States to split apart.

Climate change denial is fostering separatism among America’s more progressive coastal states, which now share more common views with Canada than the backward heartland states.

Following the shock election of unqualified, divisive, conflict-of-interest riddled populist Donald Trump as president, America’s internationalist coastal states are now examining their options.

California, Oregon, Washington, the Northeastern states, Hawaii, New Mexico and Illinois together account for just under half (48%) America’s population and 49% of America’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

These “NE-COW-IN” (Northeast-California-Oregon-Washington, Illinois, New Mexico) states voted for economic centrist Hillary Clinton in the Nov 8 presidential election.

Given Donald Trump’s election,these states now have more in common with Canada than they do with America’s interior and southern states. This is the second time the overall preference of the nations voters for president was disregarded (the first was 2000).

The current system uses questionable means (aggressively partisan gerrymandering) to throw national elections to unqualified candidates on the extreme right (George W. Bush and Donald Trump) that don’t reflect the national will of voters.

In response, California’s national opinion-shaping Democrats have declared war.California will likely hold a Cal-exit referendum in 2018 in which voters will weigh in on renouncing US statehood in favor of independence.

The key issue here isn’t god, guns or saving manufacturing jobs. These were subterfuge side issues used to wind up the ill-informed. The real issue is climate change. This is an issue the populist right rejects as an litmus test of faith over reason.

The truth, of course, is that these industries aren’t competitive without massive subsidies and require ignoring the environmental damage they do.

Huge money flows into politics are now spent by fossil fuel magnates to keep profits high through subsidy flows and unpriced carbon. That’s’ good for crony insiders. It’s bad for everyone else.

The 2016 US presidential election represented a referendum on climate change that will shift relations between states. It will cause nations to split apart into forward looking and backward looking clusters.

The NE-COW-IN states’ have increasing political and economic support for creating new economic value in their state economies through solar, wind, biomass, energy storage and a host of other new technologies. They now need to break away their ignorant, poor, inbred relations and rid themselves of these heavy baggage free riders.

Intriguingly, America’s two-century old Declaration of Independence sums up the current situation nicely. It needs no elaboration:

When in the Course of human eventsit becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
Declaration of Independence

Given the above Calexit, the creation of the NECOWIN states their integration into Canada would be looked on fondly by America’s Founding Fathers.

Expanding cross-border electricity links in coming years will largely follow the pathways laid down by fiber optics since the 1990s.Sources: State Grid Corp of China, Siemens, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), Grenatec, North Sea Offshore Grid Initiative and others.

Consider the backdrop: China suffers industrial overcapacity, all countries need new energy infrastructure and markets for pricing and trading carbon are emerging.

Investing in efficiency-enhancing energy production and delivery Infrastructure can fix some or much of this in one fell swoop.

The reason: it eliminates the economic distortions that have created cimate change: unpriced carbon and uncontrolled global carbon pollution.

Infrastructure investment will make it happen.

A series of large-scale multilateral infrastucture ideas already are on the table. What ‘s needed is to invest in them.

For instance, a ubiquitous cross-border energy transmission and clearing market will eliminate rigidities created by isolated national energy systems. This will drive down energy prices, reduce carbon pollution and minimize inefficiency.

Ultimately, energy will be pulled by consumers instead of pushed by producers.

All of this couldn’t come at a better time. The global economy is slowing, economic growth is becoming more difficult to generate and the world is aging.

Separately, large-scale investments can be made in natural gas pipeline networks This will increase energy supply security.

Europe leads the way. In the North Sea, power lines and gas pipelines are connecting littoral countries, enabling Norwegian hydropower to offset Dutch wind power and Norwegian gas to heat English homes.

In the Mediterranean, bold ideas exist to cross the sea with power lines and gas pipelines to bring solar energy and North African gas to the developed energy markets of the European Union. In the United States, proposals have been made to link a series of offshore winds farms along the nation’s East Coast into a large network.